Dig Up the Dead
by browntrowsers
Summary: A decade after the catastrophe at Jurassic Park, architect Robert Brenk finds himself wandering the jungles of Isla Nublar to develop a plan for constructing a new attraction. His team has been assured that the island is no longer dangerous but, as Brenk navigates the ruins of Jurassic Park, he begins to stumble across clues that maybe some dinosaurs survived.
1. Prologue: The Beach

Disclaimer: I do not own _Jurassic Park_. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only and meant to honor and expand Michael Crichton's vision.

* * *

 **Prologue: The Beach**

Cameron crept across the beach, his eyes scanning the inky line where the grey sand hit the jungle. The crash of the waves on the shore, the plush sand beneath his heels, the wet cargo shorts stuck to his thighs—he ignored all of it and focused of his attention on the trees and brush swaying in the wind, looking for anything that seemed to move out of rhythm.

He jumped when his brother's meaty hand landed on his shoulder. "What's the matter, Cam?" Robby yelled over the roar of the beach. "You scared?"

Behind him, Cameron's friends cackled, their hats turned backwards, their polo shirts flapping like sails. He turned to glare at them, but instead stared out at the black ocean, the yacht bobbing just off shore, the sky still glowing, though the sun set hours ago.

"Honestly," he said, "yeah, I am a little freaked out." He turned back to the tree line, to the thrashing palms and shuttering shrubs.

"Stop being such a pussy, Cam," Matt said.

"Yeah, man," Robby said, massaging his little brother's shoulders a little too forcefully. "I thought this would be a cool place to take you for your bachelor party, you know? You were so obsessed with it when we were kids."

"It is, it is. It's just..." Cameron's voice trailed off as he tried to listen for any sounds over the wind weaving between them, any roars.

"Come on, man. You know as well as I do that they bombed the shit out of this place in 1989." Robby paused, waiting for Cameron's response, before yelling, "There aren't any dinosaurs on this island!"

The beach looked grayscale to Cameron, like something photocopied. The silver sand beneath him shimmered dull beneath the blinding moon and stretched for hundreds of feet on either side of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he swore he saw something down the beach dart from the water to the swaying shelter of the jungle, but he knew he was just being dramatic. It was probably a bird if was anything other than his imagination.

"No, you're right," Cameron sighed, allowing the breeze to rip his anxiety away from him.

A smirk stretched between Robby's chubby cheeks. "Alright, then. We've got the beach to ourselves! Let's fucking party, boys!"

Every one of Cameron's groomsmen howled in tandem like something wilder than wolves. A cooler creaked open and Devon started passing forty ounce bottle of beer to each of the boys, except Robby, who tugged a handle of vodka from his backpack.

Cameron had to admit, it was a pretty cool idea—to camp out on Isla Nublar the night before his wedding. He remembered when he was ten and his dad had cut an article from the newspaper that commented on InGen's supposed dinosaur amusement park. Cameron was obsessed with dinosaurs at the time, knew everything there was to know about them, so the prospect of real dinosaurs existing somewhere on the planet sent literal tremors of excitement through his extremities. He devoured anything he could read about the so-called Jurassic Park, including books well above his reading level. He even talked his dad into letting him attend a lecture by Dr. Ian Malcolm, who claimed to have survived the incident. Hell, Cameron agreed to finance a destination wedding in Costa Rica solely because of its proximity to the island—though would never admit that to his fiancé. As soon as he let himself relax a little, Cameron laughed, took a sip of his beer, and shook his head at the absurdity of his situation.

He was on Isla Nublar. He was at Jurassic Park.

"I gotta piss," Matt blurted, dropping his empty bottle onto the sand.

"Me too," Cameron said, chasing after him. They walked together toward the jungle, then split ten or so yards apart to give each other privacy.

As he unzipped, he heard Matt's piss batter a broad leaf at his feet. "Is this cool or what, bro?" Matt yelled.

"Pissing on Isla Nublar?" Cameron laughed. "Yeah, pretty cool." He sighed as he felt the pressure fade behind his hips, felt the urine slip from his body and thud onto the sand along with his anxiety, his nervousness, his dread about tomorrow's ridiculous day.

Matt's high pitched squeal, chopped by panicked breaths, interrupted this peace. Cameron cut his stream short and tucked himself back into his cargo pants, then ran toward the silhouette of his friend flailing in the moonlight. Leaden fear wove between his ribs and strangled his heart as he thought of his friend might have come face to face with—a pack of procompsognathus, or even velociraptor. "What?!" he screamed, his alarm rivaling Matt's. "What happened?!"

Matt backed away from the tree line and uttered syllables between labored breaths. "Big... fucking... spider..."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Cameron shouted. "You asshole! I thought you saw a dinosaur!"

"Shut up, you pussy," Matt said, taking control of his breath. "There aren't any dinosaurs on this island."

When he first heard the sound—harsh and sharp, like violin strokes of steel against steel—Cameron was more confused than afraid. He looked toward his brother and groomsmen, thinking they and found something to play with on the beach, but only saw a cloud of kicked-up sand and motion against the crashing waves. The screams followed, the anguished and wild screams of someone in too much pain to breathe.

Cameron froze against the jungle and watched his friends scatter. Through the settling sand, he spotted a stiff tail bouncing in the breeze, bobbing in time to the rhythms of its occupied other end, glistening in the moonlight. Only then did he realize what was happening: This was a raptor, and it had pounced on his brother.

He tried to suppress his thoughts—that it seemed larger than he imagined, more like a utahraptor than the goose-sized velociraptor—as he turned to run into the jungle, hopping over downed palms and thickening brush. He heard Matt's footsteps and foul mouth running parallel to his, though he could no longer seem him between the trees. The noises were interrupted by screams somewhere down the beach, inhuman screams that shot from human lungs, and more of those metallic squeals.

Cameron felt knots tighten and tense in his abs, but he didn't know what else to do but run—splash through trickling streams, shoulder into tree trunks, blast between shrubs. But he stopped in his tracks as soon as he heard a playful, tickling purr above the jungle's hush. He looked around, but saw nothing but black trees leaning against the black night, the moon peeking between the flickering foliage as if he wanted to watch. The jungle smelled alive, like soil and rain, but also dead; the sudden smell of rotten flesh, in fact, was so powerful that he nearly gagged.

Before he could consider running again, Cameron felt something leap onto his shoulders, something so heavy that he gave in, didn't squirm or scream. His last cognizant thought before he was cut off by that steely squeal was not of his fiancé or wedding, or even of his brother bleeding on the beach, but the realization that they had been tricked, driven defenseless from the beach into the jungle.


	2. Abu Dhabi

**Abu Dhabi**

Robert Brenk didn't like walking around in the buildings he designed. He preferred them to remain perfect in his mind, where the where wandering each space seemed so much more magical. There, the shadows seemed crisp and cut against the ebony hardwood or marble slabs in a modern geometry; there, the light bent through the windows and illuminated even the least important corners perfectly.

But as he made his way through the headquarters of the Masrani Global Corporation, all he saw was another modern office building. Stainless steel garbage cans that needed emptying. Yellow signs that warned of wet floors. Finger prints on his wall of windows.

The magic was gone.

"Robert," he heard a soft voice say behind him. He turned to see Simon Masrani approaching him, hand extended, a smile straining his unshaven face. He wore a navy blue suit with an unbuttoned lavender shirt beneath it, which Brenk thought looked sharp; he knew he had become too old to pull off a look like that, even at 45. "I'm glad you made it here safely," Masrani said, shaking Brenk's hand between both of his. "How was your flight?"

"Fine," Brenk said, though it had been miserable. The flight to Abu Dhabi was far too long, which made even first class feel like a prison. When he landed, the airport was chaotic and hot; people rushed from gate to gate like every plane was leaving at once, and he wasn't sure how to exit his terminal. Still, he chose the monosyllabic answer over the prospect of conversation.

"Well, I won't leave you in suspense," Masrani said. "I know how you feel about pleasantries. Follow me to my office, and we will talk business."

To Brenk, the walk up a grand staircase and down a wide corridor felt endless. Instrumental music meandered softly through the building—the sort of mellow pop music that would play in any office building in the States, but spiced with the sort of chord structures that must have seemed familiar this close to Mecca. Their footsteps echoed along an empty stretch where robust palm trees lined a view of the glistening, dusty city. At the end of that stretch, Brenk spotted an enormous Masrani logo on a brushed chrome wall, backlit with blue light. He knew that the office's executive suite was behind that wall.

"So," Masrani asked while they walked, "how are things in Texas?"

"Busy," is all Brenk said.

As they entered the executive suite, Brenk caught his reflection in another wall of windows. He looked tired, his silver hair slightly disheveled, his frame slight in his baggy plaid shirt, his arms held too tight to his side. Behind his spectral reflection, he could see the sun setting over the Persian Gulf. He was relieved to follow Masrani into his office, whose low lighting, darker than the dusk, effectively erased his image from the windows.

"Let's get right to it," Masrani said, settling into what Brenk immediately recognized as an Eames chair. "I have a new pet project, something pretty big, and you're the only person I can trust to do the job the right. Without you, I don't even think I'll even be able to proceed."

Brenk waited for Masrani to continue, but the silence lingered—too long for even him. "Okay," he finally said.

"For this project, I need a talented architect. That probably goes without saying, and you know that I wouldn't work any firm besides Brenk." Masrani turned in his chair toward the wall of windows, gazed out at the shore, the olive green ocean, the sun sinking into a haze of clouds. "But I also need someone with a god-like eye—someone who can take a lump of mud and create from it the most modern city on the planet."

Brenk lifted an eyebrow. "God-like?"

By the time Masrani had turned back toward Brenk, he couldn't contain his laughter. "I've been working on that for days. Too strong?"

"Yeah, I'd say."

"So here it is: I'm working on a resort in the middle of a completely uncultivated island in Costa Rica. I need someone who can create something from literally nothing. You know as well as I do that there's no one on the planet that can do that better than you."

It was true. Brenk had made a name for himself in the '80s for breaking ground where ground had never been broken before, for constructing world-class buildings where jungles or deserts had reclaimed crumbling communities, for designing structures that spoke of the culture, the climate, the landscape. In the '90s, he had built an award-winning architecture firm, Brenk International, out of his home office, all because he was willing to build where no one else would. But he had never build on an isolated island. "Tell me more," he said. "There has to be more than to this job than you're letting on."

Masrani smirked. "Oh, there's much more. But I need some level of commitment from before we can go any further. See, this project is pretty unique, but highly classified—more classified than most. You understand."

Brenk nodded. Most of the projects he took on required that he sign a nondisclosure document before the details were discussed. He looked across Masrani's ebony desk, noticed the skin that sagged wearily under his eyes, but saw a spark of excitement that

"But consider this," Masrani added. "I will spare no expense if it means you are involved. You will get all the support you need, and I will place complete trust in your every decision, from materials to timeline. I want this to become your masterpiece—our masterpiece."

Despite the weight of Masrani's words, despite the mystery, all Brenk could do was shrug. "Sure," he said. After all, he had worked with the man and his multi-billion dollar business so many times that he trusted him more than any other client. Masrani never made a late payment, and sometimes manufactured reasons to pay his firm more than necessary. This, along with the promise of creative freedom, made the decision a no-brainer.

"Perfect," Masrani said, pulling a piece of paper and two bottles of beer out from a drawer beneath his desk.

Brenk scribbled his signature on the nondisclosure form as his boss twisted the caps off both bottles. "Okay," he said, sliding the form back toward Masrani, and plucking one of the bottles from the desk. "Now what else can you tell me? You have my attention."

"Let's start here," Masrani said, clinking the neck of his bottle with Brenk's. "I'm sending an expedition to the island in a couple weeks—a team of experts like yourself to tour the landscape, report on what you see, and help develop a plan for how to build this resort. Obviously I want you to go, not a member of your staff, but you. It's your beautiful brain I'm paying for, after all."

"Simon!" Brenk heard a woman's voice echo somewhere in the hallways outside the executive suite, then tiny, furious footsteps on the hardwood outside of his office. "Simon? Where the hell are you?"

Masrani swallowed a cheerful of pale ale, then shouted over Brenk's head. "Is that you, Molly? I'm in my office."

A woman stormed through the door, her chestnut curls swinging with each step, a frown melting beneath the sharp corners of her nose. She wore khaki capris and a dilapidated Sleater Kinney tee-shirt. "Simon, what the fuck?" she said, her tenor as stiff as her brow. "I found out more about this island. Isla Nublar? You must think I'm fucking crazy!"

Masrani ignored the woman's statements. "Robert, I'd like you to meet Molly Ives. She's one of the most brilliant technology strategists I know, and works for me at Mascom. She'll be joining you—"

"Oh no I won't," Ives said, interrupting Masrani. Her age betrayed her a bit; despite subtle wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, she looked and acted youthful. Brenk wondered how old she was.

"What's Isla Nublar?" Brenk asked.

"Remember Jurassic Park? That dinosaur amusement park?" Ives said, her eyes almost black as she peered into Brenk's. "This asshole bought that company and the rights to that island." She turned to Masrani, her mouth and brow twisted in fury. "And what are you going to do, Simon? Open a new Jurassic Park? Or are you going to see whether or not we survive the dinosaurs first?"

"Dear Molly," he said, smiling that soft smile that made Brenk wonder what it would take to make him boil over. "The dinosaurs are dead. All of them. They were killed ten years ago. I've been on the island myself many times, and I can assure you of this." He took a small sip of beer and swallowed as he leaned back in his Eames chair. "Plus, before we discuss any plans for the island, I'll need to see your reports. Everything will depend on those reports"

Ives let her shoulders drop, flipped her head backwards, and let out a sigh. Brenk didn't budge but, inside his chest, he felt curiosity flicker and flare. Designing a resort on an uninhabited island would be unchallenging. Even an exploratory trip to the island would seem mundane, no matter how beautiful the island is. The prospect of unlimited freedom and resources made him excited, but only a little; after all, he rarely took on jobs that give him the same leeway.

But living, breathing dinosaurs? That was different—and magical.

"I'm in," Brenk suddenly said. "When do we leave?"

Masrani's smile hardened, planted playfully on his face. He didn't mutter a word in response. Instead, he offered Brenk the neck of his beer bottle, which he clinked for a second celebratory time.


	3. The Helipad

**The Helipad**

Brenk was roused by an elbow to his rib. After slowly opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was the ocean, blue and shimmering, out the window on which he rested his head. When he felt another elbow, he sat up and suddenly remembered he was on a helicopter heading to Isla Nublar just off the coast of Costa Rica.

Her craned his neck so that he could see over the pilot's shoulder. A lush, green island loomed in the distance. Brenk noticed a platinum beach lining the rim where the island met the sea, and noticed shrugging mountain on the furthest side before gravity sent him back to his seat.

"We'll be landing in about ten or fifteen minutes," he heard the pilot say in his headphones. It was the first time he had heard anyone speak in an hour. "I'll drop you off on the helipad and help you unload your gear, and that'll be the last you hear from me for seventy-two hours."

"You sound like you're in a hurry to leave," Brenk heard a voice say—a man's, though he had forgotten the man's name.

"To be honest," the pilot murmured, "I could think of safer places to land than on a dilapidated helipad in the edge of a waterfall, and that's if there isn't a T. Rex waiting for me."

"There aren't any dinosaurs on the island anymore," someone else said into their headset—a woman whom Brenk remembered learning worked alongside the man. He didn't remember her name either.

"Either way," was all the pilot said until they landed.

Ten minutes later, as the helicopter swept over the island, Brenk couldn't help but stare at the landscape slipping beneath him. There were so many trees—so much green—that, for a moment, it overwhelmed his vision. He felt his eyes crossing as another elbow jabbed him between the ribs. He turned to face the source of his discomfort and found Molly Ives smirking at him. "Looking for dinosaurs?" he heard her say over the headset.

"No," he said. "Well, maybe." He tried to suppress his childish smile. "I guess I'm just excited. The island looks beautiful."

"Well, don't get too excited," Ives said. "I have a feeling that we are walking into a mess."

"You don't think there are dinosaurs down there, do you?"

Ives shrugged. "That's the worst case scenario. Best case scenario, we have to figure out a way to sort out the crumbling infrastructure already there. All those old roads and buildings—and '80s technology."

Brenk tried to put aside the thought that there were existing buildings and roads on the island. Instead, he dreamed about creating something beautiful in that unsculpted jungle—not a mere visitors center, but a promenade with shops and restaurants, but also attractions, exhibits, even rides, all leading up to some sort of centerpiece, something incredible that he'd discover when he got there. "Sounds like heaven," he said, leaning back into his seat.

•••

It finally hit Brenk as he watched the helicopter lift off: He was on an island known for an incident in which real dinosaurs killed people, and he would be stranded there for the next seventy-two hours.

He turned from the helicopter, which was now a mere insect on the horizon, toward his companions. There was a man whose specialty was logistics and infrastructure—getting people, places, and things from one place to another. Brenk remembered his name just because of how funny it was: Merman. He was a scrawny thing with round glasses, and younger than someone with round glasses should have been. He was already digging through his pack for something to eat.

Then there were the two whose names he didn't remember, a man and a woman. They were apparently security consultants, hired to offer Masrani their thoughts on how to maintain security at this particular attraction and to provide protection to the other experts on this specific expedition. They dressed like members of the military, but in all black and with matching black tank tops. The woman packed muscles onto her short, wiry frame, and the man had clearly played football in college. They brought with them a half dozen metal-lined suitcases, one of which was the size of a toddler's mattress.

Of course, then there was Ives, who Brenk was already having a hard time figuring out. That day in Masrani's office, she seemed so outraged, so out of breath with resentment. But on the helicopter, she seemed happy to be part of the mission. Brenk wanted to ask her age, but he knew this would be a faux pax. In the sun, her subtle wrinkles were more pronounced, though not unattractive, and he noticed silver streaks in her buckeye curls. But her exuberance, along with her apparent collection of ratty tee-shirts (she wore an X-Men shirt seemingly from the '80s with her olive capris that day), made her seem fifteen years younger than him.

"Okay, " she said, her eyes hiding behind an enormous pair of sunglasses. "Where's camp?"

Brenk knew that Masrani had made arrangements for them. He dropped off supplies and provisions at a predetermined base camp, and that step one of the team's job was to just show up. The rest of the mission would be to explore the island, take stock of useable and unusable assets, and write up a report that details their opinions of the island, including if and how it could be further developed. All of this Brenk and his team knew knew, and yet, standing on the sun-bleached helipad, feeling the mist of the nearby waterfall, it occurred to him how little he actually knew about his mission, including basic stuff like where base camp was, and, well, anything else.

"We have a map," the female security specialist said, hoisting two black and silver suitcases onto her shoulder. Brenk could see his reflection in her platinum sunglasses. "Follow us."

The other security specialist began marching across the helipad with silver suitcases on each shoulder, his biceps already sweating in the sun, and carved a route through the jungle for them to follow. The rest turned to each other with skeptical stares. Merman shrugged and tottered behind him, and Ives followed. Brenk picked up his backpack, took one more mental snapshot of the falls, then stepped beneath the shadows of the tropical canopy, unsure of where he was going and what he was doing. All he knew is that a short, impatient woman in a black tank top was stomping behind him with a huge flight case across her shoulders.

•••

They had only been walking about five minutes. Brenk watched where he placed his boots, stepping carefully over branches and roots that arched out of the ground. Flecks of sunlight scattered on the ground, danced between his falling footsteps.

No one talked as they left the shelter of the jungle and climbed small incline toward a plain where grass rose well beyond their bellies. It allowed Brenk to take in the surroundings—the sounds of birds chitting and chattering, the breeze pushing through the grass, the smell of sun roasted prairie and drying dew.

But at the top of the slope, Brenk lost the pleasant scent of nature and found himself overwhelmed with something else—a rotten, rancid smell that wrung his stomach. It reminded him of roadkill, but much stronger, and much more sour. He tried not to breathe but, when he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he inhaled through his teeth, and could taste the scent in the back of his throat. He gagged, but managed to keep his lunch down.

As the prairie sloped back down, though, the smell faded, and smell of the swaying grass took over. Brenk had no idea what the smell was, but no one said a word, so he decided to do the same.


	4. Basecamp

**Basecamp**

From where Merman stood, he could see the aviary glinting beneath the sun. It looked majestic and frightening at the same time—like the Epcot Center during the zombie apocalypse, dilapidated, crumbling, stained the color of some muddy river. But he found it's size and shape so mesmerizing. "I think we should check out that place," he said.

The rest of his team were busy unpacking flight cases, organizing equipment, and sliding poles through tent sleeves. Ives wiped the sweat from her forehead before lifting her sunglasses into her brow, then inspected the dirty dome. "Okay," she nodded. "I mean, we will probably check out all the buildings we can find."

"I mean I think we should go there first," he said. He squinted through his glasses and looked in the sky, scanning subconsciously for a pterosaur or archaeopteryx or whatever those flying dinosaur were called.

"Okay," Ives repeated, smiling like she was appeasing a toddler, then went back to rifling through a case full of equipment.

Merman twisted his face into a frown. He hated feeling patronized, like he was some idiot that didn't know what he was talking about. He often attributed it to his age—he was only twenty-five—and his intellect, which often placed him in situations where he had to interact with older experts. He decided to wander over to Brenk, the old guy in the expedition, who had been struggling to construct his tent for ten minutes. "Hey, how's it going over here?" Merman asked.

Brenk looked up at him with an X cut into his forehead. "Fine," he replied. Merman noticed the sweat staining his plaid work shirt along his collar.

"Doesn't look like it," Merman smirked. He picked up one of the tent's rods and started jabbing it into the dust. "So tell me about you, Brenk."

The older man's expression hardened, and he bared his teeth through a strained smile. He stopped fidgeting with the tent. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Where are you from? What do you do? Stuff like that."

Brenk wiped his head with his wrist. "Texas and architecture."

Merman laughed, but the kind that seemed too theatrical, too forced. He kicked up the dust around him. "That's funny," he said. "The way you're struggling with that tent, I never would have guessed you built stuff for a living."

Over the arch of the tent, Brenk shot Merman as stony glare. His lips pressed firmly together and his brow bent over his eyes. Had he not been beneath the shadow of a palm, Merman might have been scared away more immediately.

Instead, Merman continued talking, continued stabbing the tent pole into the ground, even as Brenk busied himself again with the tent. "I used to be in city planning," he said. "I was hired by the city of Indianapolis right out of college. Youngest city planner they ever had. A magazine even called me a 'Wunderkind,' which means 'wonder kid.' But then the private sector started making offers I couldn't refuse, you know? So I started a consulting firm and helped to design a bunch of well-known corporate campuses. That's where I met Simon. I designed his Abu Dhabi campus and his campus in the Chicago suburbs."

But Brenk didn't even look up from the tent. He had, however, succeeded at snaking the pole through the sleeve. Without a word, he plucked the second pole from Merman's grasp and started to fish it through the canvas.

"Okay then," Merman said. "Good talk." He puffed his lips, bulged his eyes in resentment as he walked away, though he wasn't really insulted; in fact, he was sort of used to such treatment. He knew that the best thing to do was back off—that retreating sometimes was the best way to keep friends, or make them, and always helped kept him from internalizing these negative interactions.

The team set up basecamp in a grove just off the prairie. It offered enough shade to make the heat a bit more bearable, but kept them out of the buggy jungle. Plus, positioned along a slight ridge, it offered a view of the island's western landscapes-the river dipping into a lush valley, the hills rolling in the distance, the remains of tattered fences dividing the landscape. Merman could also hear the river shushing nearby, barely audible above the frantic buzz of birds and insects, so he decided to check it out. As he stomped downhill through the dirt, past shrubs and cuts of rock, he tried to make a note of the trees he passed, how they curved or arched or twisted toward each other, only slightly worried that he was getting himself lost.

The forest cleared at the bottom of the slope, where a swampy pond stretched from east to west. The air seemed to vibrate with heat, and the smell of murky water filled Merman's nose. The pond seemed to feed into the river maybe half a mile away, and the sound of rushing and trickling water seemed to surround him. Merman hopped onto a rock rising a foot or so from the muddy shore and tried to take in the scenery—the broad-leafed trees bouncing in the heat, the fanned ferns beneath them, the reeds and roots winding out of the algae and muck.

And that's when he saw it, a row of ribs rising from a base of mud and gore, a few dozen feet down shore.

From where he stood on the rock, it looked like it could have been the carcass of a turkey, or some sort of heron. But, as he hopped from rock to land and stepped closer, its size became apparent. It was larger than a dog, than a goat. It's skin had been pulled back from the ribs, and the lumps therein had been ripped to shreds, deflated, and left to blacken on the bank. Soft, grey moss climbed across it the furthest corner of flesh and onto one of the ribs.

Merman took two cautious steps closer and caught the specter of what this carcass must have smelled like months ago when it was still fresh. The longer he stared at it, the more he thought he was able to make out different parts—a forearm, a claw, maybe the trunk of a tail. But two steps closer revealed a row of grinning shark teeth smiling beneath the shroud of mold, and a familiar skull shape poking beneath a sheath of scales.

It was a dinosaur, Merman realized.

"Holy fuck!" he murmured, backing away slowly, then racing along the muddy bank of the swamp, hopping over roots and stones toward the hill where he had exited the forest, and back beneath the canopy that suddenly felt less beautiful and more dangerous than before. "Guys!" he shouted. "Guys! Where are you? Guys!" But realized the more he shouted, the more his voice echoed off the trees and through the humidity, the more he'd attract the island's living dinosaurs.

When he tripped over an exposed root, landing palm first into a bed of ferns, he panicked, unsure what had happened, whether he had been knocked down or attacked by one of those dinosaurs with the big claws between his toes. So he thrashed and swung his arms, let grunts and whines slip between frantic breaths, kicked free from beneath the root only to tumble into a toppled trunk. And as his shoulder grated against the dead bark, the leaves fluttering like bats around his ears, he let out one moss-shaking scream-"Help!"-hoping his team would come to his rescue in this malignant forest.


	5. The Fence

**The Fence**

Brenk felt his face flush. It happened when he was mad. First, he would the heat on his cheeks, then the tip of his nose sizzle. It only compounded his frustration that his emotion was so visible. But in the jungle heat, he hoped nobody would notice.

They were still looking at the goddamn carcass, which didn't look like a dinosaur to Brenk. That maniac Merman had gone flailing through the jungle, yelping about a dead dinosaur. The two members of the trek's security team cast concerned glances at each other, then followed Merman through the jungle. Ives and Brenk took their time, skeptical of what Merman had found.

They were even more disappointed than they expected to be. The corpse was black, unrecognizable, seemingly melted in the heat. It's bones rose like the frame of some burnt-down building. Even the face, which Merman said was a dinosaur's, revealed a birdlike skull, but nothing with the jaws or teeth of a dinosaur. Worse, the thing sat beside the nastiest swamp, one that felt to Brenk like the very source of the island's heat and mosquitos.

But now they had been staring at the lump for a half hour, talking quietly to each other and measuring its ribs with reeds they were plucking from the water. Brenk could think of so many better things to do than stare at some bizarre carcass, which could be a thousand things besides a dinosaur. "How much longer do we want to examine this thing?" he murmured.

Merman's eyebrows lifted behind his glasses. "You don't think this is incredible?"

"Not particularly," he said, turning his head toward the jungle. It sounded so complex, it's rhythms overlapping in cacophonous layers. He heard a bird yammer, and saw branches bounce from where it must have lifted into the canopy. Clearly, the jungle was more alive than those bones and tar. "Why don't we don't we explore some the island instead, try to get a lay of the land around us," he said. "There's supposed to be an inn or a hotel or something within a mile or so. Besides, we could always come back to this...thing later."

"Cool with me," Ives said, hanging her backpack onto her shoulders. She seemed to Brenk to be standing near the carcass more for the sake of politeness anyway. The others rose back onto their feet, the man cracking his neck with one graceful, gruesome gesture.

With saucer-sized eyes and a mouth slung slightly open, Merman looked a little betrayed. But even he stood, reluctantly admitting that they had spent enough time with this carcass.

As they climbed back up this hill, Brenk tried to stay focused on the terrain and his compass, but kept looking back at Ives marching behind him, her hair in a knitted bun behind her head, her smile pleased and eager despite the heat and humidity and that disgusting carcass. But his gaze kept slipping toward Merman, pulling up the rear, and how his attention alternated fearfully between the rotting corpse beside the swamp and the shifting wilderness around them.

• • •

They had only just risen out of the forest and into a shimmering prairie when they saw the fence winding, bending into the distance. "Wow," Brenk heard himself say aloud as they approached the twenty-four foot tall barrier. It started along the treelike, but then cut through the field like a stream, bobbing and swaying with the landscape.

They had walked beneath a similar (presumably the same) fence on their trek to basecamp, but bumped against the forest, it didn't seem so intimidating. Here, Brenk could see it stretch for miles and miles, up and down hills. As an architect, he appreciated its design; its rows of reinforced steel bars, comprised of tubes as thick as a girder, looked modern and secure, and it's concrete foundation, though crumbling here and there, seemed imposing at six or so feet high. The row of spikes along the top looked tacky, he thought, but he supposed it served an important purpose. Brenk recognized this as what made it beautiful—it served its purpose by providing the illusion of safety to potential visitors and deterring any animal that might try to breach or climb it. It doesn't matter how secure it is if it looks secure, Brenk thought. And it did look secure. He took note that these old fences might still be useful for Masrani's next project.

"Well, how do we get on the other side?" Merman asked. "Climb?"

"How about we go through there?" the male security guard said.

Their eyes swept together along the fence to a spot where the concrete had been completely blown out, as if a bomb had detonated nearby. Brenk wondered if maybe one had, if this was where an explosive fell fifteen years ago when the Costa Rican Air Force set out to destroy Hammond's dinosaurs. "Looks like we found a way through," he said.

As they walked along the perimeter fence, the wind swept across the prairie grass and cooled Brenk's face. Hills bunched in the distance, building up to a faraway mountain that seemed to preside over the prairie. They followed the man from the security team, who Brenk now knew was named Rodriguez. He was a pretty intimidating guy. Though he was short, small muscles rippled beneath his black tank top. His partner walked beside him, but Brenk still didn't remember her name. He wasn't sure she had even glanced at him since they got on the helicopter.

Both security members walked side by side as they passed through the opening in the fence. It was smaller than it seemed, too small to be blasted by a bomb. It looked as though something had pushed through it. Rodriguez and his partner both placed their hands on their holstered handguns, Brenk noticed, which was weird—were not they hired as consultants as he had been? And why were they given guns but not he and the others?

Brenk followed Ives and Merman, the last of the team to pass through the damaged fence, but paused to inspect the tubing bent and snarled above his head, to notice the crumbling concrete reclaimed by weeds. The more closely he inspected the fence's foundation, in fact, the more curious he became. Here, he saw a gouge in the concrete like something had sliced at it. There, he saw concrete crushed beneath his feet, not in enormous chunks but in a gravel that seemed flattened into the brush and dust by something heavy.

A terrifying thought crossed though Brenk's mind, sent a cold streak down his sweating back: Could this be where one of the dinosaurs broke though during the parks catastrophe in 1989? Logic, conspiring with the heat, calmed his frantic imagination; together, they suggested another possibility: The Costa Riccan military made their way through the barrier after they bombed the island.

"Are you coming?" Ives yelled, already knee-deep in blonde prairie grass, the sky bronzing the lenses of her sunglasses.

Brenk didn't say anything. Instead, the stepped through the fence careful not to twist his ankle on the concrete crumbles beneath him until he found himself wading into the prairie. When he looked up, he could see the silhouette of a building a mile or so ahead of them where the sloping hills leveled, hiding behind a cluster of trees as if it were trying to avoid a predator. Two smaller, broader buildings flanked a central structure like shrugging shoulders. "Let's go there," he said as caught up with his team. "I think it's the Iguanodon Inn. It was one of two or three Masrani asked us to check out. Maybe we can assess its viability as a structure before the sun goes down."

The team was too tired to respond. As they stepped together toward the complex, Brenk noted their strained breath beneath the incessant shush of the prairie. The sound disturbed him, but not as much as the realization of just how exposed they were in this landscape—defenseless, vulnerable.


	6. Iguanodon Inn

**Iguanodon Inn**

Everything was fine until they reached the Iguanodon Inn. Until that point, Molly Ives's trip to Isla Nublar felt surreal—part adrenalized adventure, part wispy daydream, part first person video game. In fact, the only thing that grounded her, reminded her that she was really on that island, was the sweat that stung her eyes and soaked her shirt and made her underwear bunch uncomfortably beneath her capri pants.

She wiped the sweat with her arm, the blocked the sun with her hand as she gazed at the exterior of the Iguanodon Inn, trying to imagine the building in its glory ten years before. They walked up what must have been a paved road but was now overgrown with patches of grass and weeds, small shrubs and saplings that twisted between slabs of asphalt. "Think this road is salvageable?" she asked Merman with a smirk. His response, a half-grunt half-snicker, seemed to connote pity and contempt.

As they walked closer, the resort's true beauty became clear. The building seemed U-shaped with a courtyard constructed in the open space between two wings. The facade, made of two-toned sandstone, had cracked and crumbled; chunks of it leaned against exterior walls or floated in the overgrown landscaping. Still, there was something noble and beautiful about the building, something luxurious that made Ives smile as they stepped up the sun-bleached stairs into the courtyard.

"The building is pretty dated, even by 1980s design standards," Brenk said, suppressing his smirk. He kicked at the marble surround of a dried up fountain; rusty streaks like tear stains tore down a statue of what Ives recognized as an iguanodon on three legs, it's head lifted with it fourth thorny appendage. "It looks like the kind of suburban resort that attracts married couples looking to rekindle their romance," Brenk added.

Ives snickered at the comment, but felt her brain burn with resentment. _There's something so pretentious about him_ , she thought. _Which is too bad because it eclipses so many otherwise appealing features_. When she looked down, she found her fingers tangled around each other.

Ives presumed the overgrown fruit trees that filled the courtyard were smaller and well-maintained in 1989; she tried to imagine guests picking limes to slice and serve with margaritas. Now, they became obstacles, barriers; she watched Brenk sidestep around one, his plaid shirt snagging on one of the branches, then Merman, who walked like a stick bug trying to attract a mate. As Ives skirted past a lemon tree, she inhaled deeply, hoping to catch a whiff of the wild citrus fruit. Instead, a sour smell swatted her nose, like rancid milk and maggoty meat. "Ugh," she whispered to herself.

Brenk and Merman waited by a row of front doors like a toothy smile that welcomed them to the Inn. Though the glass had been fogged by dust and rain and condensation, she noted shadows pacing back and forth inside—Rodriguez and Gemma, she hoped, who insisted on going in first with their weapons drawn. "Okay," she said. "Now what?"

"I suppose we go in and take notes on what we see," Brenk said. "What's still usable, what could be repurposed, and what should be torn down." He ran his hands through his salt and pepper hair and smiled at Ives. "Though I'm sure there's very little that could be salvaged here, from the looks of it."

"I guess we'll see, then, won't we?" she smirked, unsure of whether she was flirting or just hoping she could prove him wrong.

The sliding front doors of the Iguanodon Inn separated just enough for Ives to sidestep through without much difficulty. Once inside, she was first taken aback by the enormous lobby, more open than a museum's and much cleaner than she expected an abandoned building to be. Shadows draped from each corner of the space, and dried mud swirled across the concrete floors; otherwise, the room impressed her, intimidated her even as it welcomed her in. Even the walnut reception desk positioned in the center of the space seemed well-organized.

Then she took a breath.

Like a grease trap full of rotten meat left to congeal in the summer sun, the stench consumed her, stole her from her awe-struck state and sent her spinning until all she could do was grope for the cold granite wall and hope she wouldn't fall over. It was a rancid odor, overwhelming, but also pungent; it stung her lungs as she inhaled, reminded her of a summer she had spent volunteering at a cat shelter. "Oh, shit," she somehow heard Merman grumble behind her. "What is that smell?"

"I have no I idea," she said, tugging the brim of her shirt onto her nose./

But she did recognize the stench—she had smelled it several times since the helicopter landed, first as they climbed the hill to their campsite, then at the carcass beside the swamp, and finally as they followed the fence through the prairie. It seemed to follow them, faded in and out, though, until this point, Ives had half-heartedly wondered if it was Merman. Here, in the lobby of the Iguanodon Inn, the smell was so oppressive that it seemed palpable, like something she could shove out of the way.

Ives only snapped free of her vertigo when she heard an unfamiliar sound in the silent lobby, a distant trumpeting sound like an elephant, but brighter, staccato. Her better judgement told her that it was probably some unfamiliar tropical bird. Still, she felt her fingers and elbows tremble, her muscles stiffen above her quivering knees, as if her body were shifting into autopilot, ready to fight or flight.

Then she heard an unmistakable commotion, the sound of movement around the corner, rushed and rapid, approaching so quick that Ives barely had a moment to brace herself before two shapes flung themselves around the corner and squared up to her. "Hey, you have to see this," Gemma said, her hair swinging loose in front of her face. She clutched an oversized assault rifle, which startled Ives. Behind her, Rodriguez's biceps flexed beneath the weight of an even larger weapon.

"Where the fuck did you get those guns?" Merman yelled as if trying to shout through the stench.

But Rodriguez and Gemma had already begun jogging back in the direction they came, their boots clacking against the pristine marble floors. Ives followed, oblivious to who she left behind. The enormous foyer gave way to a hallway the width of an airport terminal, its walls spotted with mold but still shimmering in the darkness with a dignity and beauty that befit the building's better days. But Ives's adrenalized brain didn't have the capacity to notice. All she could do was follow the shadows outrunning her—she did her best to follow their echoing footsteps when their black outfits disappeared in the darkness—and hold her breath; the closer they got to wherever they were going, she realized, the stronger the stench became.

She was only vaguely aware of Merman's uneven pace behind her, the sound of his asthmatic wheezing, his keys jangling in his pocket

Halfway down the hall, light filtered in through a west-facing wall of windows. Ives guessed the pool must have been on the other side, and she was right; through the windows, she saw the empty pool and its deteriorating blue mosaic set against the vibrating panorama of the island. Gemma and Rodriguez stopped near its entrance; Ives noticed their stiff expressions, looks that contradicted the cocky apathy they've shown the entire trip thus far. "Look," Rodriguez whispered, pointing the barrel of the fun through the window.

At first, all Ives saw was an abandoned office chair stationed in the empty deep end; all of the deck chairs and tables had been pushed into the pool too, as if by the wind. She saw why: All of the windows had been blown out—glass glistened all around the pool deck, and grass grew between cracks. The shrubs outside seemed overgrown and angry, thrashing in a wind that seemed to pick up dramatically./

When she heard Merman's voice—"My god," his voice trembled—Ives knew she wasn't seeing what she was supposed to. That's when she realized the shrubs weren't thrashing; instead, it was two animals with round heads and long snouts, their teeth like nails hammered haphazardly. The creatures bent over something at the edge of the pool, but Ives could tell that they were taller than she was. Backlit by the sun, it was difficult to tell what they were or how they looked, especially since their shoulders stuck up so dramatically— _Are those wings?_ she wondered—but knew they were tugging at something with their long beaks, ripping the flesh off of what looked like a long fish, like a barracuda./

"Dinosaurs," Rodriguez whispered.

They were, Ives realized, and she was no longer concerned with the technology at the Iguanodon Inn or Masrani's money or even the stench, even at its maximum strength. In fact, as the two animals tugged the fish back and forth between them, there was only one thing on her mind, something she realized had been on her mind the entire time: "Where's Brenk?"


	7. The Woods

**The Woods**

The forest surrounding the Iguanodon Inn was thick and vicious, full of thorny vines and broad-leafed plants that bounced just beneath Brenk's armpits; the way he held his arms above his head, the way misquotes scurried around his palms, he felt like he was wading through a disgusting pond. Beneath the foliage, his boots slipped on hard, shifting surfaces—rocks or logs. To his left, a ravine dropped suddenly, dangerously, into even darker shadows.

As he swatted ferns from his path, Brenk regretted not entering the foyer with the others. All he wanted was to get a better view of the inn's exterior, to get a sense of its size and condition. Instead, he found himself fighting shrubs and shadows. It'd be easier to see the building if he walked closer it, but then he wouldn't be able to take in the big picture; from where he was, though, it was impossible to see the building at all.

In the sun up ahead, he spotted movement—tree branches wagging up and down, though there was hardly any breeze. The sunny opening, he guessed, might offer a good vantage point from which to inspect the hotel.

As he cut through the forest, Brenk thought about how strange it was that the wilderness surrounding the Iguanodon Inn was less jungly and more woodsy, like the kinds of forests he would hike when he was near Seattle, where several of his buildings stood, or Portland, where he had no buildings but an ex-wife; when he wasn't sitting at a long conference table in a windowless office, he spent his time trying to escape in an endless green state park with moss-covered trees and soft soil during that six-month ordeal. Even the air on this part of Isla Nublar smelled like those forests—damp, rich, earthy; for a moment, found himself lost in a hazy, lonely sort of nostalgia.

For some reason, it made him this of Ives.

She definitely wasn't his type. He preferred the intellectual type, but the sort that read Voltaire and listened to Mozart records, not the sort that shoved pizza into her mouth while playing Magic: The Gathering—and Ives just oozed the latter. He wasn't sure why. There wasn't anything explicitly nerdy about her. He suspected that, if he made a snarky comment about Batman, she'd get his face.

Then what is it about her? he wondered, kicking through ferns, stepping over saplings and between their older brothers. He was halfway to that opening where the tree branches still bobbed inexplicably and the sun sliced through the canopy. _Maybe it's her sense of humor, or her eagerness to lead our team, or even her success_ , he thought. _Or maybe it's her figure—she looks pretty good for being middle aged_. That hair, streaked with silver but still youthful looking, and her outfit, dressed like an undergrad student on laundry day—he couldn't explain it, but he couldn't get her picture out of his head.

Of course Brent was kidding himself. He knew why he was attracted to her.

It was likely her appearance, her sarcasm, her fearlessness—all of that. But, though he would never admit it, he preferred actual intellect to intellectualism. Ives was smart—one of the smartest IT professionals in the world, especially if Masrani picked her for this job—and no Dungeon Master in the world could break that charm. He smirked at this thought as he stepped through a spiderweb hanging between two prehistoric trees, swiping the strands away from his face and neck. _With metaphors like that,_ he mused _, you two might be a match made in heaven._

Ahead of him he heard the forest shift, then the sound of an animal shrieking.

Ahead, where the sunlight broke through the trees, he saw an animal teetering on a branch. At first, Brent thought it was a monkey or a tropical bird until he noticed its long, scaly tail stiff behind it, presumably using it to balance on the bouncing bough. It bent its head back, cracked open its beak, and released a caw into the woods that echoed between the branches; other animals returned the call from all around Brenk.

It took him a moment to realize that this was, indeed, a dinosaur—not one of the ones he knew, not a T. Rex or Stegosaurus, and definitely not a Triceratops. Instead it was spotted green and gold and perched on the tree with the casual elegance of a bird, its claws folded against its chest. The prim look on its face put Brenk's mind temporarily at ease; it didn't seem threatening or hungry, like the dinosaurs of his youth (or even those he heard about in newspaper reports on the island a decade before). It seemed content, maybe a little apathetic.

But it saw Brenk. It was staring right at him.

He hadn't realized that he had stopped walking mid-step, or that his body had shifted all of its weight on his left foot, perched on a smooth rock beneath the ferns, or that his right foot still hovered a bit in the air. He steadied himself in this pose the best he could, fixated of this animal whose unblinking eyes locked onto him and whose short beak sculpted into a permanent scowl. A deep breath ballooned in his lungs, calmed his nerves as he decided whether to put his foot down—whether to move at all, and in which direction. He didn't want to threaten this creature, which may or may not have been one of those things that he read about ten years ago with the huge claws jammed between its toes—he was too far away to determine if it sharp teeth snarled behind it's lips.

As his breathing slowed, a strange thought surfaced in his mind: _Dinosaurs climb trees? Since when?_ It was enough to distract him, to lull him into a false sense of security. Slowly, He lowered his right foot.

The dinosaur pulled it head back and barked into the sky—this time without pause. The golden skin around its neck juggled with each undulation, and the branch beneath it bounced. The creature didn't seem panicked or frantic—in fact, Brenk felt his heart flutter at the realization that this animal was, in fact, in complete control.

All around him, the forest shuddered, rollicked like some monster waking from uneasy sleep. The shushed sounds of scampering surrounded Brenk as creatures jumped from from branch to branch, barking in different pitches and at different rates. It was eerie to experience until Brenk saw how many of these dog-sized dinosaurs were hopping through the foliage—dozens, each barreling through the leaves noisily and half-camouflaged—at which point, he froze in horror. None seemed interested in him, though; instead, they rushed toward the one still barking in the clearing, louder than the rest, his beak glinting in the sun.

Suddenly, Brenk heard the ferns rattle nearby and turned to see one of the creatures stumbling through the leaves right toward him, squawking like an angry goose. Unsure of what to do, Brenk shifted his weight onto his right foot, but felt the rocks slip beneath his boots. His hands groped for whatever slipped through his fingers—vines, leaves, roots, rocks—and even carved into the muddy hillside, but nothing slowed down his slide.

The last thing he saw before he slid too far into the ravine was the dinosaur cutting toward the Iguanodon Inn and hopping onto a downed tree. At that point, Brenk felt something sharp hit his tailbone, flipping his body airborne just before everything went black.


	8. Room 128

**Room 128**

"Cearadactylus," Rodriguez said, staring out the window of room 128 of the Iguanodon Inn.

"Ceara-what?!" Ives barked, her voice louder than she intended, eliciting wide-eyed glances from her counterparts, who were worried about dinosaurs prowling the hallways of the hotel.

"Cearadactylus," Gemma answered, resting her rifle on a still-made queen bed. She tied her long, stiff hair into a ponytail as she sat down beside it like she was getting ready for a fight.

"How do you know?!" Ives barked again, and this time Merman shushed her frantically. She took an aggressive step toward the two security guards, who suddenly looked far less intimidating hiding in an abandoned hotel room.

"It's the only flying dinosaur on InGen's list," Gemma answered.

Merman stepped between them, his glasses crooked on his nose. "I don't think the flying ones are actually dinosaurs," he whispered. "Technically speaking."

Ives glared at Merman before refocusing her fury onto Gemma. "And what makes you the expert on InGen all the sudden, Little Miss Bazooka?"

"Stand down, lady," Rodriguez said. "We're on the same side, remember?"

"Are we?" Ives said, turning to Rodriguez's silhouette in the window, her voice quieter, but somehow more acidic. "Because, I gotta say, it seems like you two are a lot more prepared for this trip than the rest of us."

Both security consultants cast their eyes at the patterned carpet beneath them, the silence filling the room like air in a balloon, though it was eventually broken by the now-familiar screech of two Cearadactyluses fighting in an empty swimming pool over whatever they had fished out of the nearby forest. Everybody in the room, already frozen, stiffened just a bit, clenched their teeth, opened their senses to anything else that might be threatening their immediate safety.

"So are you security guards or consultants or whatever?" Merman asked.

"We are," Rodriguez said. "We worked for a security firm called Hoskins Protection until earlier this year, when Masrani bought up InGen. He tapped our boss to help reconstruct InGen's security division, so now we are part of that team." He sighed, blinked a few times, shook his head as if trying to rid a thought from his brain. "So we are here in the exact same capacity as you are: To evaluate the existing security infrastructure and assess whether and how it could be implemented in future projects."

"But Masrani hired us to protect you, too," Gemma blurted, as if unable to keep it to herself any longer.

"From dinosaurs," Ives stated.

"Correct."

"So you knew there were dinosaurs on Isla Nublar." Both the look on Ives's face and the tone of her voice indicated that she already knew the answers to her questions.

"We were, in fact, briefed in advance of all the possible dinosaurs still left on this island," Gemma said, her gaze swatting away a glare from Rodriguez. "Honestly, it was only a matter of time until you all found out."

"But we are ready for them," Rodriguez added, picking up his assault rifle. "We know which weapons are most effective on which targets, and which pose little to no threat. We've trained extensively for this mission."

Ives shook her head, felt her mouth unlatch and hang agape. She wanted to ask, "Then why are we hiding in a hotel room?!" but found herself without the breath required to mutter the syllables. With no dots left to connect, she wasn't sure what to do besides sigh and release silent, incredulous laughs into the room's stale air. Can I even do my job, she wondered, landing onto a dusty desk, with dinosaurs running around? How do I assess the network capacity of something dinosaurs have been gnawing on for a decade? Pissing on?

Merman paced the room. "I'm just a little uncomfortable," he whispered, massaging his temple with the palms of his hands. "Is it too late for us to back out of our agreement? Because I'm feeling a little uncomfortable right now."

Gemma sighed. "Look, I agree that this is not an ideal way to inform you of the park's...current status," she said, wincing at her word choice. "This was all Masrani's idea, okay? 'Let them see the majesty of the park first, and then tell them.' I don't think anyone expected us to break the news while we were hiding in an abandoned hotel room from a pair of snaggletoothed flying reptiles. But you are safe in our hands, contrary to how things may appear in this moment."

"It's true," Rodriguez said framed by his window and the bouncing green jungle outside. "It might get scary out there, or it might not. We are ready either way."

A tense silence tightened inside the room like a rope ready to snap.

Inside her stomach, Ives felt her anger churn into something smoother. "So what do we do now?" she asked.

Gemma glanced across the room at Rodriguez, who looked back at his partner, as if each was hoping the other would answer. Finally, Rodriguez spoke with a calm confidence. "Well, first, we need to find Brenk. If he's in the vicinity, I say we do what we need to do here at the Inn for the sake of our mission, then head back to base camp."

"Which," Gemma added, "was specifically chosen because of its location. It's far away from any known nest or territory, and surrounded on three sides by the river. Believe it or not, that location is even safer than this hotel room."

Ives had a hard time believing anything either of them said—and, if his warped expression was any indicator, neither did Merman. But shrouded by the shadows of this dust smothered hotel room, he had no choice but to trust her so-called security guards. "And what if he isn't in the vicinity?"

"Then we look until we find him," Rodriguez said. "And we will. We're not going home without our whole team in tact."

Somewhere in the depths of the hotel, the Cearadactylus screeched more frantically than before, and their wings battered the sides of the building. Everyone in the room started, their muscles tense, their senses alert. They felt the rhythm of the beasts beneath their feet, heard the windows rattle in their frames. Ives watched Gemma's hands tighten around her rifle.

But that fear was nothing compared to what reverberates through Ives when she heard that other noise—a growl like a jungle cat's distorted through a faulty PA system at full blast. It didn't sound like any roar expected to hear from a dinosaur; it sounded much more sinister, much more dangerous, and much louder—loud enough for her to feel it in her lungs; to shake her vision; to exorcise the dust from the bed and dressers and send it floating into the air.

"What was that?!" Merman hissed, panic dripping from his temples. He turned to Rodriguez and repeated, "What was that!?"

But no one answered because no one knew. Instead, they stood perfectly still and prayed they'd hear it stomp thunderously away.


	9. The Ravine

**The Ravine**

The first feeling that roused Robert Brenk at the bottom of the ravine was a cool, seeping sensation that spread slowly across his back. In his state of semi-consciousness, though, he excused it, accounted for it, allowed it to blur into his dream, one in which he was back in Texas, dining with his ex-wife, resting against cool leather of the booth's bench.

When he opened his eyes, a shroud of dark, bobbing broad leaves occupied his gaze. Beyond it, he sensed a hazy sun filtering through the canopy. Slowly, it dawned on him: He was at no steak house, and no ex-wife sat across from him weathered and exhausted; he was on an island near Costa Rica, was scrutinizing a crumbling a building, had fallen in the forest, and—what was that yanking at his leg?

Reflexively, he flicked his foot, kicked at whatever was trying to steal his boot. When he sat up, he could see its dull, camouflaging scales reflecting in the half-light, its tail swinging behind it, its face still rummaging through the broad leaves he has been buried beneath.

"Ah!" Brenk yelped. "Goddammit! Go away!" He kicked his foot again, then both feet. The creature grunted, then scampered off, its hips swaying as it ran. It was one of those goose-sized things he had seen in the tree before he had fallen. He recognized it by the noise it made, a raspy bark like a octogenarian with pneumonia, and its short face, with oversized cow eyes and a bony beak.

After taking a moment to calm his breathing, Brenk realized he was at the bottom of the ravine—that the Iguanodon Inn was probably only a hundred feet as the crow flies, though up an incline that would take some effort to scale. From the ground, he couldn't even see the complex; green leaves and vines wove through the landscape between thick tree trunks, wrapped around streaks of sun and shadow. It wouldn't be easy to climb a hill so thick with forest, but he knew he had no other choice.

He lifted himself onto two feet only to feel a sharp, tangled pain in his right ankle—a twisted joint, maybe, or a sprain. He took two steps through the ferns and decided that he could walk, albeit uncomfortably. On the forest floor, he found a strong stick about shoulder high, trimmed off some spare branches, and used it to steady himself as he began his climb.

The first twenty feet were fine. Brenk took it slow, stepping sideways through rotting leaves and wide-reaching fronds, balancing on cuts of stone and patches of moss. Already out of breath, he rested on a ledge. There, he heard that barking again, the sound of those dinosaurs perched on the trees. He looked up and saw them everywhere, sitting still on branches all around him. Some bounced as they balanced; others tugged at leaves and chewed as they looked out the forest. But most stood still, watching, as if waiting for something. Brenk found it funny, how unafraid he was of these dinosaurs, and wondered what kind they were.

The next twenty feet were more difficult, and much more vertical. At one point, as Brenk took a step from a rocky shelf onto a patch of slick leaves, he slipped five feet further down, loosing his crutch, stopping himself only by wrapping his fingers around some exposed roots. Pulling himself onto his feet, he took another break and stood astonished at his progress. He was only about fifteen feet from where the ledge flattened and the sunlight fell flatter and brighter. The ravine beneath him was hidden now. Indeed, the same wide leaves and tangled vines that hid his destination now obscured his starting point; he could no longer see the ground where he had landed.

He knew something was wrong when the forest around him fell silent. The small green dinosaurs sidestepped toward the trunks of the trees or scuttled up into higher branches, then stood like mossy statues. The birds and even the insects chirping in the forest seemed to disappear. The silence was eerie, especially since the trees continued to shush, the sun continued to hum.

Brenk's instincts told him to stand still—to listen carefully to the forest around him, and to remain in the shade of the ravine—so that was what he did.

Beneath his fingertips and feet, beneath his knees pressed into hill's mud, he felt the vibration, a beat he mistook at first for some functioning equipment on the island—a generator, maybe, or an excavator, though he knew neither would make such a sound, this consistent boom, boom, boom, especially in this abandoned jungle. The beat shuddered more and more, louder and louder, as if something was creeping coming closer. He felt it beneath his boots, in his throbbing, injured ankle.

That's when Brenk heard the snorting and wheezing, and the shuffling sound above him at the top of the hill. He looked up and saw a reddish-brown lump through the trees—another dinosaur, he knew, and a big one, but it was difficult to tell from the hillside which. He aimed his gaze through broken branches and saw its pachydermic skin, cracked like old leather and scarred. He studied animals gait, the way its muscles tensed and relented gracefully—there was a leg and, behind it, a long tail that swung stiff behind it. It neither lumbered nor lurched, but seemed to sneak gracefully on nimble toes.

The animal approached a clearing where the trees opened and the sun broke into the forest, providing Brenk an uninterrupted view of Iguanodon Inn's roofline. As it stepped through into the clearing and Brenk got a look look at the monster, he had no doubt what dinosaur this was. The square head the size of a loveseat; the teeth dripping from his mouth; the tiny, alert eyes and flailing nostrils—this was a Tyrannosaurus rex. In that instant of recognition, he stood not in awe or disbelief, not in delight, but in a primal horror he had never before felt but instantly recognized.

The monster bent low, then released an ear-splitting roar into the air that echoed off the inn, off the hills of the ravine, off the island's distant volcanoes. The animal's body stretched as it made this sound, its tail rigid, its muscular neck tense, its jaws wide enough to snatch Brenk's entire body in one bite.

And as the sound reverberated across the island, the rex silently closed its mouth and took two steps back, pushing himself beneath the branches and vines on the hill, and stood silently, rigid in the shadows. It was still in plain view—there was no mistaking the giant dinosaur twenty yards away from him—but, after thirty second or so, Brenk found it difficult to distinguish whether the speckles on its back were leaves on a nearby tree, or the sun filtering through the forest, or the animal's own natural camouflage. And that's when Brenk realized what it was doing.

It was hiding, waiting to ambush prey.

This realization led Brenk to an important decision: He would not leave that hill for a while. He would hide in this ravine as long as he needed to, sprained ankle or not, and that he would definitely not return to the Iguanodon Inn, especially not with that monster waiting there in the shadows to snatch whatever walked past the building.


	10. The T Rex

**The T. Rex**

"Velociraptor," Merman whimpered as he pulled his face back into room 128. His bulging eyes and panicked scowl told a story of what he had seen in the hallway. "Definitely a velociraptor."

But when Ives peeked her eyes into the hallway, what she saw was a small dinosaur the size of a golden retriever. She noticed its stiff tail and alert eyes, watched it lift its nose into the air as if it smelled something foreign or unfamiliar—likely them.

"It's not a velociraptor," she whispered, still peeking out the door.

"It is, it is!" Merman cried, pushing his way past Rodriguez to the far side of one of the guest beds. He flattened himself on the floor between the box spring and the wall.

As the dinosaur sniffed the rug, Ives noticed its fangs and claws, both sharp and frightening, but in the way a muskie's mouth looked intimidating hanging on the wall; she wasn't sure what damage it could do to something as large as a human. She also noticed no sickle-shaped claw jutting between its toes, the raptors supposed trademark.

Before she could report any further to the team, the small dinosaur lifted its snout toward the ceiling and released another bark into the air—a noise far louder and far more wild than one would expect to emerge from such a small creature. The noise ricocheted down the hallway, splintered into the hotel room, and shook the mass-produced paintings hanging on the walls. Merman whimpered again; Ives braced herself, convinced that the dinosaur would hear him.

"Can't you just shoot the thing?" he whined.

Rodriguez and Gemma ignored him, though they aimed their rifles at the door frame. Gemma crept closer to Ives, took slow, careful steps as she peered down the length of the barrel. Over her comrade's shoulder, she peeked into the hallway and spotted the small dinosaur, back to sniffing the rug. "Coelurus," she whispered. "Not a velociraptor. If we yelled really loud, I think we could scare this one away."

As if on cue, an enormous sound reverberated through the building—shook the mass-produced paintings, but also rattled the light fixtures, resurrected dust on the baseboards. Ives felt the sound in her lungs, force her eyes shut; she was too distracted by the way the sound knocked her on the ground to even interpret what it was. When it stopped, it still echoed through the halls of the Iguanodon Inn.

When she was able to open her eyes, Ives watched the coelurus skitter down the hall, swerving around strands of dust as they fell from the ceiling. At the other end of the hall, she heard the unmistakable cearadactylus squawk and the violence of their wings as they fought their enormous bodies into the air.

"What the fuck was that?" Rodriguez whispered.

A muffled and incoherent sound rose from behind the bed where Merman hid; Ives worried that he may have been whimpering, or even crying.

"It came from outside," she said. "It seems to have scared off the dinosaur in the hallway, maybe the flying ones in the pool too."

"Then this might be our only chance to sneak out of this room and make it back to basecamp," Gemma said, her rifle still pressed against her cheek, its barrel still aimed into the hallway.

Merman's head popped up from his hiding spot, a disembodied head painted in primal fear. "Basecamp?" he said glasses slipping off the bridge of his nose. "Fuck basecamp! There's no way I'm going back out there!"

"Basecamp was chosen specifically because it is one of the few areas on the island where the animals do not go," Rodriguez said. "Even without two security professionals establishing a perimeter, it is literally the safest place for us to be right now—much safer than the bed you're currently hiding behind."

"What about...whatever made that sound outside?" Ives asked.

"That's why we have these," Rodriguez said, hoisting his rifle into the air. His smirk was cocky, but somehow comforting.

Still, something about Rodriguez's statement threw Ives off. It wasn't just the implication that this exhibition's planners knew exactly what they would find when they arrived on Isla Nublar. Instead, she wondered why the basecamp was so safe. What makes is it safest? she thought. And how safe is "safest" on the world's most dangerous island?

But before she could consider it any further, Gemma was leading them out of the room, her rifle aimed down the hallway at the wall of windows facing the pool. She took silent steps down the hall, coiled in a half-crouch that made her seem both balanced and ready. Ives peeked back Merman, tense and wincing, shepherded by Rodriguez, who pointed his rifle down the far end of the hall where the coelurus had vanished.

As they passed the pool, Ives confirmed that it was empty save for the desk chair and tables; neither shrubs nor dinosaurs swayed on the deck. The closer they got to the lobby, the more potent the rotten smell became; it stung Ives's nose, spun her mind in the same disorienting manner as it had before. Merman whined quietly behind her, but her attention was too consumed to concentrate on his words.

The stench was worse in the lobby proper, like a zoo animal carcass left to rot in the heat of its own shit-slathered enclosure. Ives wondered what could cause such an overwhelming odor, but didn't want to know the answer. To distract herself, she focused on Gemma's slow, gentle gait—the way her feet swept over one another as she stepped past the dark reception desk, through puddles of light on the poured concrete, across a stamped Jurassic Park logo, its depths grey with dried patches of mud.

Ives was relieved to squeeze through the Inn's front doors. She took a long, deep breath, though was surprised to find the hot breeze carrying another stench—still rotten, though fresher, more focused and vibrant—competing with the acidic smell of fruit rotting on the branches. The last time she walked through the Inn's decrepit courtyard, she was hassling Brent; now she worried about whether he was safe or not. She stifled the urge to shout his name.

One by one, the team crouched beneath boughs heavy with lemons as they followed the path around the crumbling fountain. At the edge of the courtyard, a vast prairie loomed divided by wavering fence lines and a roadway hidden by weeds. In the distance, a dark, emerald jungle separated the prairie from the sky. For an instant, Ives felt safe—if there was a dangerous dinosaur, they would see it.

Beneath her feet, Ives felt the ground vibrate unevenly—An earthquake, she decided in an instant as she knelt down and pressed an open palm to the dry dirt and stiff grass. It was the only way for her to rationalize the sensation, to prove this wasn't some sort of dinosaur-inducedfever dream.

The way the tyrannosaurus rex lunged at Gemma, swept her in its mouth and away from her team, ensured that its prey was safely clenched in its mouth before she had a chance to comprehend what was happening, let alone respond.

Ives noticed the vast shadow looming over her, the breeze of a muscular tail swinging over her crouched body, the rotten smell of sweat and heat and decay like an oppressive weight—all of this before she realized that woman leading their team was no longer standing beside her. She stood up and noticed the dinosaur ten yards away—a swallowtail fluttering around its stiff, speckled tail the color of Moroccan clay—but knew not how to respond.

Behind her, a rifle spat noisy and percussive, shells glinting in the sun as they landed in the nearby dust, but all she could do was stand in the sun, surrounded by clamoring weeds, and tremble.

Merman screamed obscenities in a high-pitched, desperate wail, his body a hologram of panic and despair, but her only response was to lock her knees and release every other muscle in her body.

Only when the tyrannosaurus turned to face the rest of the team—Gemma's body crushed between its jaws, its yellow eyes locked on Rodriguez's rifle—was Ives able to react consciously. "Run," she muttered, shoving Merman backwards towards the Inn. "Run!" she repeated, the tyrannosaurus's hideous growl vibrating the roasting air. "Run!" she screamed, and scrambled as fast as she could past Rodriguez and Merman back to the front doors of the Inn as the world shook, once again, beneath her feet.


End file.
